Your hunt for authentic Malay noodles ends here

There’s a particular flavour that gives Southeast Asian street food a visceral identity. It’s called wok hei, or ‘breath of the wok’. That special smoky taste imprinted on the food by the personality of a super-hot wok is seasoned by experience and residue. It is not easy to replicate this at home, which is why street food is street food in the best kind of way. American food journalist Kenji Lopez wrote a column in the New York Times about the smokiness produced by a restaurant wok and chased that up with a whole book in which he attempts to recreate it in a domestic kitchen setting. The Char Kway Teow at Kopitiam Lah, Bengaluru’s first Malaysian restaurant, has this nuanced X-factor. The stir-fried flat rice noodles with pork crackling, eggs, bean sprouts, garlic chives and dark soy sauce has that signature smoke-produced complexity which if you’re familiar with it, will transport you right to the bustle of a hawker centre in Malaysia. You eat this dish and you know the people who made it know.

Kopitiam Lah is the latest creation of the Bengaluru-based Lavonne Hospitality group, spearheaded by pastry artist Joonie Tan, a Malaysian who’s lived in India for now over 15 years (and happens to be married to Chef Vinesh Johny, chef partner at Lavonne). The menu she’s created with head chef David D’Souza and chef-consultant Darren Teoh of Dewakan (Malaysia’s only two Michelin-starred restaurant) is a judicious mix of coffeeshop staples and quintessential dishes you’d spot at a typical Malaysian spread. Indeed, chef D’Souza spent months testing and learning recipes, and even tutored under Tan’s aunt in Malaysia, who runs a kopitiam (coffeeshop in Malay) in their hometown in the northwestern state of Perak.

For Tan, the local kopitiam was part of her childhood experience: “On my way to school my mum would go to one right next to my school, order a boiled egg, hot Milo and a kaya toast, or sometimes, a char siu bao. Once I'd finish, my mother would watch me walk to my school across the road.”

Kopitiam Lah’s breakfast menu is anchored in those childhood memories. It offers several versions of Milo alongside more than 20 concoctions of coffee and tea and a selection of soulful, reassuring breakfast options: silky steamed eggs topped with seafood XO sauce, radish cakes with shrimp and egg floss, the classic kaya (or coconut jam), partnered with toast and runny soft boiled eggs, and a selection of breakfast sandwiches such as the luncheon meat toastie, which is a sodium-induced umami-bomb. Then there’s the Wantan Lee Dry, a bowl of yellow noodles tossed in a house-made soy seasoning and shrimp-shallot oil, served with bok choy and crispy wontons. I chose the chicken version, which is accompanied by slices of Pork Char Siu—in my experience, the best Char Siu I’ve tasted in Bengaluru. In this case, made from particular cuts of pork imported from Russia and marinated to perfection by chef David. At the moment, the Bengaluru eatery only serves breakfast and lunch, with plans to start dinner from August 28th.

The 74-seater restaurant draws inspiration from old tearooms around Southeast Asia

While we now know what a kopitiam means, the ‘lah’ is a common Malay slang expression affixed to the end of sentences. It doesn’t carry a meaning of its own but as Tan points out, “Depending on the intonation, its meaning will change.” So, think of this as way of saying, ‘it’s a coffeeshop, lah!’ What I love about this restaurant is that it is unapologetically, authentically—read, funkily and pungently—Malaysian. Tan, “the OG Malaysian on the team,” as she says, is not interested in serving up a watered-down, easy-on-the-Indian-palette, anaesthetised version of her cuisine. So she’s included items like Rojak, which means ‘mixed’ in Malay, that you’re not likely to find it on menus in India. When you read the description, the dish sounds like a dysfunctional salad: chunky fruit and vegetable salad served with a sweet-sour tamarind, gula melaka dressing, and fermented shrimp paste. But bite in, and the combination is tangy, cooling, sweet and savoury. You’re no longer interested in the individual ingredients but how everything manages to create a functioning, even familiar partnership.

The flavours, as Tan puts it, are “strong, but authentically strong.” And the 74-seater restaurant serves that up in a warmly-lit space peppered with familiar culture kitsch. Irani cafe chairs, a maneki-neko figurine, stone-topped tables on green-and-white tiled floors, stacks of condensed milk and Milo tins on the bar shelf… all the seasoned tropes from old tearooms around Southeast Asia are here. A bit of nostalgia, some whimsy… But more than anything else Kopitiam Lah is a great place to rekindle familiar tastes from visits to Singapore or Malaysia. You will not be disappointed. In fact, Tan will even get you to eat noodles for breakfast.

Meal for two: ₹3,000
Timings: 8:30 am–5 pm; Monday closed
Address: Kopitiam Lah, Ground Floor, 1088, 12th Main Rd, Doopanahalli, Indiranagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560008